Currently, there is an explosion of online tools, many of which are FREE and are focused on collaboration and self-publishing. As we run across these tools, we can list them here and create a page for each resource.
What, you may ask, is so special about "free?" Many times in education, teachers will see products that may be potentially beneficial to their students, but would be too expensive to implement legally, i.e. a copy of the software for each workstation. Currently, many web-based innovations, e.g. Wikispaces, are developed to have a "free" version and a more advanced version that requires a subscription.
It is worth noting that the "free" versions of these programs or websites often bring in revenue by showing ads somewhere on each page. This is problematic for teachers in classrooms because you have no control over what types are ads are displayed. Many of these businesses, e.g. Wikispaces, VoiceThread, PBWiki, etc, have decided to offer K12 teachers ad-free access to their sites for free. Be sure that if the service is ad-driven that you check into this option.
Collections / Overviews Describing Educational Uses of Online Software
Vicki Davis, a maverick tech teacher in Georgia, compiled a presentation on how some of these software tools can be used to differentiate instruction. A page that allows you to interact with her presentation is here.
Johnstone, N. Home Page. ICT in Science Education. Retrieved June 18, 2008, from http://ict-in-science-education.wikispaces.com/. - Huge collection of online tools and resources specifically collected for science educators.
Collaboration Software
Resource - Skrbl Whiteboards - Interactive online whiteboard that can be edited by multiple people simultaneously, password protected, and published to the web. Skrbl whiteboards can also be embedded into existing sites such as wikispaces.
Classtools.net provides a collection of graphical organizers that can be embedded into your class wiki or blog so that it can be accessed online.
Google Docs is a free online word processor that allows students to work on the same document simultaneously.
What, you may ask, is so special about "free?" Many times in education, teachers will see products that may be potentially beneficial to their students, but would be too expensive to implement legally, i.e. a copy of the software for each workstation. Currently, many web-based innovations, e.g. Wikispaces, are developed to have a "free" version and a more advanced version that requires a subscription.
It is worth noting that the "free" versions of these programs or websites often bring in revenue by showing ads somewhere on each page. This is problematic for teachers in classrooms because you have no control over what types are ads are displayed. Many of these businesses, e.g. Wikispaces, VoiceThread, PBWiki, etc, have decided to offer K12 teachers ad-free access to their sites for free. Be sure that if the service is ad-driven that you check into this option.
Collections / Overviews Describing Educational Uses of Online Software
Collaboration Software